Category Archives: Academia

Richard Posner and Gary Becker have been arguing in the wake of the Summers resignation that what universities need is far stronger structures of centralized leadership and control, with a relative removal of faculty from governance. I find myself tempted … Continue reading →

During Monday night’s program on Open Source, which I really enjoyed participating in, there was a brief moment where the studio I was in dropped its connection, just as I was about to say something mildly critical about Swarthmore. (Everything … Continue reading →

I’ll be on Open Source in Boston tonight, 7-8pm, with Andrew Hacker, Dorothy Zinberg and Harry Lewis, discussing university governance, Larry Summers, etc.

Well, first off, my apologies to Meg Worley, who appears to have a justifiable complaint that she was misquoted by the Times. Two interesting and to my mind legitimate issues have come up in the wake of the discussion of … Continue reading →

A few disconnected thoughts on the resignation of Larry Summers. 1) At the time of the original explosion about Summers’ remarks on gender, it seemed to me that the debate about him outside of Harvard led away from more important … Continue reading →

Professors in popular culture long have been represented as otherworldly social isolates. Everytime you think that’s just a stereotype, unfortunately some academics step up to the plate to give the image some new life. There’s a piece in this morning’s … Continue reading →